


Chainmail Rings

by Sinderlin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Auctions, Dirty Talk, Helmsman, M/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:46:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinderlin/pseuds/Sinderlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i like to write in first person so sue me</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i like to write in first person so sue me

When you've been bad, he likes to put little open chainmail rings over your fingers and pinch them shut. He doesn't pull them back open unless you get down on your knees and beg for his tiny scrap of mercy, even if your fingers swell and bleed around the little metal lines. When you prove you're sorry, he pries them back open and yanks them off, occasionally tearing skin as he goes. He likes the face you make then, relieved and agonized and worried. The look he wears frightens you, but you can't do anything about it.

You often think back to that wide, cold-eyed smile he shined down at you the first time he saw you. Well, not the first, exactly. You'd been put up at auction, you think, but it was so confusing. Everything had been. You've started a journal, cataloging the events of your life until now, since soon you won't have one even remotely your own. You crouch and pull it out from under your desk, opening it to the first page.

\--

White specks in the sky glimmered on high and your lusus grumbled at you unhappily. He tugged you along toward the distant roar of the city, far from the small forest surrounding the breeding caves. You stumbled and scrambled alongside him, frustrated and out of breath until you finally snapped at him in a fit of exhaustion. You realized you could float along beside him after the shock tossed you into the air, and he rubbed the sting of the tiny optic blast away while he trundled on. The two of you picked a hivestem out and you moved in, crowding into an empty room with the little bag of supplies he carried over his shoulder. You got to know and hate your neighbors right away, curling up by your lusus' feet until your first migraine hit you full force. He picked you up and held you to his shoulder well into the day, even when you pounded your fists against him and told him it had passed.

\--You turn the pages.--

Your first bulky computer arrives, and you start talking with a troll you ran into by chance. He's constantly cranky, and it's pretty entertaining just to needle him and see how mad he gets. He's also really nice right off the bat, helping you set up your new tech(even though you didn't need help) and showing you the ropes online. You start learning programming languages right away and start hanging out in the outskirts of the city from time to time. A really cool adventurer type of girl with a bullwhip hangs out by the ruins there, and you kind of like her. You start realizing the voices you hear all the time aren't exactly your neighbors, or at least not now. The guy next door appears to be screaming nonstop, but when you went to go tell him to shut up, he was perfectly fine and calm. His second voice, apparently inside your head, was shrieking itself hoarse, though. He apparently got crushed to death by another neighbor's lusus sometime during that day, you later found out.

\--You turn the pages a little faster, ignoring more and more of the day-to-day things.--

You filled out your little friend circle and grew up fast, losing your wriggler fat and shooting up into a twiggy adolescent. You shoot a hole through the wall while practicing your psionic abilities and almost kill one of your neighbors. You find out you're a freak, but also just one in ten. A freak like everyone else. You have to keep your lusus on the roof and feed him a substance that you can't even touch for fear of eating any, and you learn to speak in beenary. Not binary, beenary. Fucking organic hardware and their finicky, griping maintainence workers. You fall into the red quadrant with the cute redblood girl, you think...You send your grey-text buddy a virus that actually blows up his computer and sends him into a furious screaming fit. You know this because he called you and left a message entirely in vocal capslock. A blueblood you and your redblood friend(girlfriend?) both hate starts bothering you, and then your redblood friend/girlfriend is dead and you were the weapon used to blast her away. The old tablets she'd sent you to translate stop mattering, since the code was hardly coherent anyway.

\--You pause before turning to the next section.--

In the middle of the day, a drone had come crashing through the hivestem, plucked you up casually, and left again. You blasted the thing and headed for the hills, but a few more showed up and one clocked you from behind. You'd come to in a training center filled with other kids and stared at them in a daze. They all had dumb helmets strapped on them, and wore near-identical jumpsuits. You touched your head and noticed you were just the same. None of you bore signs, but you all had a smear of your own blood on the front of your uniform. You spent the first night learning the layout and getting back to full capacity. The second night, adults practically came out of the framework and took you each to different rooms. They taught you discipline and respect, as well as restraint. The third night and onwards, the instructors would see to it that each and every one of you was lined up, no hair out of place, listening and watching attentively. Any hint of rebellion was hit with enough tranquilizers from a blowgun backed by a fully grown indoctrinated psionic to down a hoofbeast. You tried to rebel a few times. You got the sense beaten back into you. You don't go with the rebels to the back room after the first perigree, and you know they were executed the perigree after that. You became the best in the class; most powerful, most intelligent, most responsive, and therefore the best fit for Her Imperious Condescension. You still weren't nearly old enough for that, though.

You finished your training and indoctrination early and were lightly branded with your completion date and a seal of the empress. They told you that you were to be put in the capable hands of the empire's elite until such a date as the empress needed you. They clapped shackles around your wrists and ankles and dragged you by the front of your jumpsuit to a rusty looking vehicle at the back garage of the compound. They drove you to the coast, swapped you onto a ship and sailed out to a small island lined with polished walkways and lush palms. You were dead tired but stood with a level face and straight back for them on the stone platform they pointed out. Others of varying blood color stood on small platforms to your left, all as deadpan and straight-backed as you. One was a pretty upper-class girl branded with the mark of a traitor to the castes. You've never seen anyone punished for openly disagreeing with the caste system before, but you turn your face back to the empty arena before you.

A barrel-chested blueblood takes the podium in front on the lot of you, announcing with a booming voice that the auction is about to begin. From walkways disappearing into the palms, you see and hear the rich laughter and chatter of highbloods as they pour into the arena and take every available seat. You didn't know there were this many of them. Some fan themselves with their cards, while others continue to talk. The auctioneer starts right in, pointing out all of you to the crowd and naming off the colors of each. You lift your chest a little and when he calls you the prize of the assortment, listing your accomplishments and your future employment and lifting your visor to show off your bright red and blue eyes. You see the whole lot of them perk and hear a rumble go through the crowd; a wave of whispers and greedy eyes.

The first one of you is auctioned off, a brownblooded psychic, to a lush lavender. The second and third go to an indigo better with wicked teeth. They disappear from your side in a shortening line, until only you and the pretty girl are left. She gets a fair bit of attention, and finally a purpleblood gets her. She steps carefully off the stage, and you float yourself in gently, standing with dignity beside the auctioneer. The crowd chatters excitedly, but signs fail to come up as he announces you as Her Imperious Condescension's helmsman. You resist gaping with everything you have, being eaten alive by the many eyes of the most powerful people in the empire. He corrects himself, future helmsman, and signs hesitantly raise. The crowd eases into the flow of it quickly, and soon your price is higher than the stars themselves and arms are still shooting up. You see a few cold faces hold strong to the end, glaring at each other as they silently bicker. 

The price is too heavy for anyone but the Condesce herself, you think, by the time only two are left bidding for you. The one has been glaring daggers at everyone the whole round, but the other hasn't dropped his hand since he lifted it, you realize. The former is about to get up and start a full out fight, but the latter tilts his head, flashes a cold smile, and touches the rifle on his shoulder. You feel a little lightheaded and nervous as the two become just one last bidder, and you're sold and floating stage right and waiting with a prideful smile and a stone in your stomach for your new owner. The crowd slowly disperses, purchases in tow, and you spy your ice-eyed highblood approaching. Your keepers step back and bow, asking if he would like them to help in your transport. He declines and presses a large, firm hand to the small of your back. He looks down at you, lips pulled back in a wide smile and eyes hard and cold. You think of a ravenous bullshark and inwardly cringe.

His ship is large and cold and damp, and the crew smirks down at you disconcertingly. He leads you below deck, long fingers sliding across your spine until they weave into your hair under your helmet. He's not pushing you forward at all any more, just twirling tiny locks of hair between his fingers while you walk side by side. The stale perfume of rum and metal drift from open doorways, sloshing in your lungs. The looming door of the captain's quarters grows at the end of the hall until you stand under the shiny brass handle, watching his hand drift to the knob in a haze. His quarters are filled with gold coins and treasure, lined with fine furniture in maple and mahogany. With a gentle push, you are moved to a plush chair beside his desk. His hands rest on either side of your helmet and lift it off. You can see his bright eyes with no barriers now, and he can see you.

He simply smiles and tells you that you have nice eyes, straightening and brushing past you with your helmet under his arm. The high-backed purple-lined chair creaks quietly when he takes a seat, and your helmet falls onto his desk with a soft thunk. It smells more like wine and island flowers in his room, with a hint of that rich wood polish every item has been shined up with. You attempt to get up, but he looks up from the papers he had pulled from the desk drawers and stares you down. Re-seating yourself, you watch him work in silence. His hands look rougher than they felt, wrapped around a golden fountain pen and smoothly looping across paper after paper.

\--You almost don't want to read the next section, but you go ahead and turn the page.--


	2. Chapter 2

It starts with him asking to see your brand. Two nights gone since he paid for you and he's only just told you to do anything for him. Actually, he really did ask, lips quirked and brows raised. He didn't order you to show it to him, but you oblige with a sense of pride. You unzip the back of the jumpsuit and roll it down past your shoulders, turning your back to him as politely as you can. The series of numbers, dates, and seal of the empress are burned into the skin below your left shoulder blade, near-white scar tissue clear against the smooth grey of your back. He hums and you hear the chair creak behind his desk. You start to pull the thin cloth back up but he growls ever so softly and you stop. The calloused pads of his fingers scrape lightly over the figures, underlining this portion and that and tracing the seal. It feels weird, but of course you wouldn't say anything to that effect. You do not speak unless spoken to.

He's been surprisingly gentle and kind to you thus far, telling you to entertain yourself while he commands the ship. You're quite happy with how things are developing, as he leaves you to your thoughts even as you sit beside him while he slogs through inordinate amounts of paperwork. He's an efficient, effective, and generally liked privateer under command of Her Imperious Condescension, from what you've gathered. You overhear begrudging compliments in the crew's conversations, and while they glare at you and threaten or yell at you when they catch you listening in, you maintain the rigorously taught blank expression. You give them the respect and berth their color deserves, but the only one who has command over you is your owner(unless he says otherwise, which he has not).

He's still feeling out the planes of your back, though you notice the protective second skin of your suit has slipped lower and he's wandered away from the scarred patch. You stop trying to hold it up, since he seems to be engrossed in his new toy. His hands feel cool on your back, again smoother and softer than they looked, and his nails are sharper than yours even though they've been carefully filed and manicured to perfection. You feel uncomfortable when the thin fabric rolls down over your elbows and settles at your hips, but still don't feel right saying anything about it. You're still so young and thin, so it couldn't possibly be anything like...that. You never saw anyone like that in those videos. Still, his hands skirt around the tiny dip of your waist and skate down to the rolled-down fabric of your suit. His cool breath ruffles your hair when he sighs, and you open your mouth to finally object.

"Sir?" you ask, arms pressed to your sides and eyebrows pinched in uncertainty. He hums again in response, thumbs hooking under the fabric and shoving it over your hips and sending it to the floor. Your arms-all of you-are bare and just a touch colder than you'd like, except your face. Your face feels hot, and your hands feel clammy. You decide to chance it. "What are you doing?" He pauses, then rests his hands on your bony hips.

"I own you," He starts, "So I can do what I like with you." His breath tickles your ear when he leans down. "Didn't they teach you manners?" He lets out a short huff of air that you take to be an indignant laugh at your expense. You lower your head and move your hands to preserve your modesty up front, despite him being behind you. He licks the shell of your ear and nibbles at your lobe, hands sliding onto your thighs. You want to tell him to stop, partly because it feels weird, and partly because you're sure now that he wants something you don't. At least not the mental part of you. He starts to nip and suck the soft skin of your neck, thumbs rubbing circles into your thighs, and you try not to squirm at the feeling. It's not an entirely new sensation, you've done that sort of thing on your own before, but now it's someone else running their hands along your inner thighs and you can't exactly say no even though you don't feel comfortable with it.

"My, my...So wet already?" Dualscar chuckles into your ear, bringing his hand up and rubbing his fingers together. Yellowish droplets smear over his fingertips and you want to curl into a ball and die. His other hand is still stroking and kneading your inner thigh and you can actually feel yourself dripping now. You guess your bulges are a little more reluctant because of the overpowering adult hormones or something. You have no idea, but it just makes you feel even more uncomfortable. The hand on your thigh drifts up and strokes the swollen folds of your nook, heel of his hand shoving your protective fingers away from the top of your slit where your bulge would be if it were out. "Hm. Not like we'd be doing much with it anyhow," he comments dryly, palm grinding against the bump of the opening. His fingers splay your nook open and he dips a fingertip inside, making a thoughtful noise against your neck.

"Sir, please stop," You hesitantly request, trying to figure out how to move away from his hand without using psionics. His middle finger starts to worm inside of you. "Stop," you repeat, sparking in warning. He laughs again, rich and deep, and pushes his finger deep until it sinks in to the knuckle. He kept his rings on. They're cold. You clench involuntarily and try to give a warning growl, but that's been beaten out of you hard enough that it's mostly whine. He smells like heady mating musk and sea salt, and it's oddly appealing. He twitches his wrist, finger sliding almost out and pressing another finger into your lubricated opening. His fingers are a lot larger than yours, but with how wet you are, they slide in alright up to the second joint. It's less comfortable up to the knuckle, especially with those cold gem-crusted rings up against your sensitive parts.

"I own you," He informs you a second time, pumping his fingers in and out of you in time with his words. He strokes your cheek with the hand not currently occupied with baser needs and promptly sinks his teeth into your shoulder. You yelp in pain and surprise and hear the pops and fizzles of unfocused psionics. He clenches his jaws, making you whimper and shake, and you feel his tongue and his rumbling, muffled chuckles. His fingers slide out again, and you feel him pressing a third finger in.

"No." You writhe, trying to squirm away from the hand between your legs and the arm across your chest and vainly attempting to deny the whole situation. The painful stretching as he forces his fingers inside your nook don't help any, and you start clawing at his arms blindly. He manages to shove them in to the second knuckle, but you scream at him and knock his bookshelf over with an unintentionally well-aimed psionic bolt and he stops moving entirely. Without the excess stimulus, your brain starts to cool down, breaths evening out slowly. You wince as he withdraws his teeth from your shoulder, but the pressure in your nook is much more, well, pressing. Without him constantly trying to shove his fingers deeper, though, it doesn't feel as bad. You must be getting used to it.

"I forget how delicate you young ones are," he muses, pressing his face into the crook of your neck. You sigh and relax for the moment, dropping your hands to your sides. His fingers are much warmer now, and it doesn't feel quite as bad once you've adjusted. His thick fingers twitch inside you and you gasp, clenching down on them. "Oh, you like that, do you? I am nothing if not a gentleman." He chuckles and gently pulls his fingers nearly out, and excruciatingly slowly pressed them back in. It feels so much better now that he's being careful, and you can feel your bulge coming out at last.

You moan somewhere in the middle of your third attempt to tell him to stop. Why would he want this? He could have bought the pretty girl. He could have picked the brownblood. Instead, he's nipping your ear and covered up to the wrist in thick yellow genetic material. Your bulge is squirming desperately under his palm while your brain is screaming at you to fry him like an egg with psionics, or at least get away, or even just get him to stop. No matter what you try to do, your body just won't listen, though. He's been stretching you out without you realizing, and you feel the cold press of jeweled rings against your hot skin again. Thinking he'll just keep on like he has been, you look over at the fallen bookshelf and wonder if he'll make you put it back in place once he's done with you.

His fingers slip out of your nook with an obscene sound that makes you cringe, and both his hands pull away. It sounds like he's fumbling with something, and you really want to make a break for the door while he's distracted, but your legs won't work. A part of your mind darkly reminds you they probably won't work for a different reason later. Fabric and armor hit the polished wood floor behind you, and his hands return to your hips in no time. His teeth scrape carelessly over the back of your neck. He yanks you back and pushes you toward the desk, shoving you harshly so you land flat on your back on top of the paperwork he'd been filling until only recently.

"I like to see the faces of conquests I take for the first time," he explains nonchalantly, tossing one of your legs to the side like a common nuisance. His bare body is tightly muscled, scarred, and proportioned like an immaculate roman statue. His most currently eye-catching feature at the moment is squirming between his legs. His bulge is flushed a rich violet and coiling around itself excitedly. Physically, he's attractive enough, but you know you aren't the only slave he has. You've seen them. He's a sadist, through and through.

"Sir, don't," you push yourself up onto your elbows and scoot back, pulling your leg back up. He laughs richly again, yellow-slicked hand shoving your leg to the side once more. His lips are peeled back in annoyed grin. His eyes narrow and his pupils dilate. You try to press your leg back over, but his yellow- painted hand claps onto your knee and shoves it even further over. His other hand comes to rest on the inside of your thigh and pushes it the opposite direction. He pulls you back until your hips are just on the edge of the desk and presses close to you.

"I'm in a giving mood tonight, so I'll be gentle with you," he sneers. The very tip of his bulge is teasing and prodding insistently at the outer folds of your nook. His lips close over yours before you can protest again, and you can feel the sharp points of his teeth scraping over your lips every time he opens his mouth and forces in another lick of cool, wet tongue. Your bulge is painting slick circles on his stomach while his finds your opening and starts working its way into you. Moans bubble up from your throat while his thick bulge writhes into your stretched nook. Large, sea-rough hands lift yours to his back and move back to your waist once your nails dig into his skin. 

He pulls back with a smug smirk on his face, eyes locked on your face. His bulge is halfway in and still desperately trying to wiggle further. It starts to hurt and you dig your nails into his back harder, whining. His smile widens and he rolls his hips at you, forcing another couple inches in. Attempting to wriggle away again, you push at him and try to scratch at his face. He rocks his hips, keeping you still with the hands on your waist pinning you to the desk. Your eyes start to water and you realize you're chewing on your lip and keening.

"You fucking like that, don't you?" He groans and sweeps his hand across your stomach, grinding his palm against your bulge. It feels amazing, but you just want to punch him in the face and crawl into a deep dark hole and never come out again. You're gasping and moaning, pushing at his chest and wrapping your legs around his waist. Your fists make soft little thumps on his well-muscled chest, making him laugh. "Overwhelmed? You're so sensitive. This is only the start of our fun together." He's breathing hard, sweat beading on his skin and running in rivulets down his neck. "You look so much better like this. You'd look even better on your knees begging to suck me off." The noise he makes is somewhere between a laugh and a groan. He forces more of himself inside you, eyes hazy with lust.

"S-stop," you gurgle, pushing and pulling at him alternatively. Tears start rolling down your cheeks unpermitted, beading at the corners of your eyes. You mutter out incoherent pleas and claw at his skin. You feel a sharp sting in your cheek and hear a wet crack next to your ear.

"Don't blubber, you ungrateful little shit," he snaps, teeth bared. You keen and feel your breath hitch once, twice, and sob. Your shoulders start to shake and you can feel the warm, wet tears pouring out. It feels so good. It feels so good and it makes you feel sick. He slaps you again and you bite your lip, muffling your sobs as best you can. Your eyes refuse to focus and you're gasping and moaning between sobs. He's no quieter than you are, but his voice as he calls you his little slut is so much deeper and full of lively excitement. "That's right. You love it, slurry whore." 

Your bulge is stiffening and straightening against his palm, straining hard. Your vision starts shorting out, and your muscles tense in preparation. The pressure inside you is awful and wonderful, rubbing your oversensitive insides raw. You're crying and rocking against him, growling out little half-pleas half-threats. He's too into the rhythm of things to care about the nonsense you're spewing while he rolls his hips against you forcefully. You wind your legs around him as tightly as you can, scratching purple ruts into his back, throwing your head back and jerking your hips up to meet his. You whisper something about a pail though he doesn't seem to hear you. "Pail!"

He nearly crushes you against the desk when he leans over to pull something from under his chair. You're too busy trying to hold yourself back to see exactly what it is, but when he lifts away from you, you feel cold metal press against your stomach and he pulls your lower half high and tight against him. You let yourself go, moaning and clawing at his back. You hear the ring of fluid and metal and sigh in relief, eyes rolled back into your head. He isn't finished even if you are, though. The metal pail sloshes with fluid when he shifts back to a more comfortable position and holds the bucket under you.

"Come on, come on..." you hear him muttering faintly, grinding your hips together. "You're so tight, it's fantastic," he moans into your ear. It feels less wonderful now that you're through and starting to chafe where your skin rubs together. You decide to just lie back, relax, and try to catch your breath. It's more difficult than expected what with the hard, thick object stuck deep up in you. He's still rocking his hips against you, chanting dirty little things into your ear and leaving long smears of your own yellow on your body with his sweeping, searching hands. He sucks hickeys onto your neck and pricks your skin with his needle-like teeth while he moans and calls you a slut, his slut, his pretty little lowblood slut. He doesn't pull out when he comes, but pulls you up tight and kisses you breathless again. The genetic material splashes down into the bucket under you.

"You're a good fuck," He huffs, plopping the bucket down on the desk next to you. The way it sloshes makes you think it's a good three fourths or so full. You can feel fluid running down your thighs and curling around your calves. He pulls out, slowly, letting the void grow as he leaves you. He grins down at you and grabs your suit off the floor. He gives you a quick wipe-down with it and tosses it in the trash bin next to his desk. He pulls his pants back on and takes his seat behind his desk. He pulls a cigar case from a drawer in his desk and bites the end off one, spitting the end into the bin. He lights it up and looks down at you, still sprawled on his desk and out of breath. It smells a bit like foreign flowers and tar. You reach up and take it from between his lips, holding it over you face. He doesn't say anything, but his lips are parted and he's staring at you intensely.

You take a drag on the cigar and choke on it, coughing and rubbing at your eyes. He bursts out laughing and bangs a fist on the table. "Bloody cheeky brat!" He rests his chin in his hand and grins down at you, taking his cigar back. He takes a quick puff and pops out a perfect orb of smoke. You roll over and bring your knees up to your chest. It wasn't any good anyhow. He strokes a finger down your spine and you can feel his hungry eyes on you. You wish he hadn't used your jumpsuit for a rag. You feel cold and want some damn clothes.

"I think I like you. Put on my shirt," he smirks around his cigar and points at the crumpled shirt lying inside his armor. You twist your head to look at him inquisitively, but he just raises an eyebrow and takes a puff of his cigar. You roll off his desk and stumble over to his pile of discarded drapings. You're already way too sore between the legs and it makes you wobble when you walk. You kneel down and tug the shirt out. It's black, so it's okay, but it's way too big. You pull it on anyways and sit on your heels. You somehow feel more alive, but dead inside. He makes a thoughtful noise and his chair creaks. "It'll do. C'mere." He blows smoke rings and pats his lap.

You sit in his lap while he smokes his cigar and plays idly with your hair. When he finishes his cigar, he pushes you off his lap and walks to his strange bed, flopping down and leaving you to yourself once again.

\--You consider closing the diary and shoving it away again, but keep turning pages. You've been forgetting too much lately.--


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dualscar is really drunk in this chapter, and he is in love/hate with everything ok

The first time he hits you, really hits you, is in a drunken fit after his Kismesis fails to show up at their meeting place. His rings scrape skin off your cheek and the joint of your jaw pops and clicks under his fist. You've barely hit the floor and he leans over and spits on you, rubbing his knuckles. You've seen him tossing around his other slaves before, but somehow it didn't seem like it would happen with you. He called you his favorite and sat you next to him at the banquet tables. You stared up at him with blood running down your chin while he called you useless scum and told you all the ways the world would be better off without land dwelling cretins like you. He kicked you any time you dared speak up and poured the rest of his third bottle of wine out over your head.

You didn't want to be another slave in the barracks. You much prefer being the favorite. When he's through beating you he practically throws himself into the old chair behind his desk and buries his face in his arms. You think he might be crying, but you don't feel much like comforting him. You sit on the floor and listen to his breath hitching with a growing inner hatred of the sound. He's wholly self-centered, cruel, and given means beyond his mind that make him seem like a spoiled child playing kings and war. He really might as well be, given the touch and go relationship with his kismesis. You hope she snaps one night and kills him.

He lifts his head after a while and orders you to come sit in his lap. He's still thoroughly drunk and you can't tell if he'll remember anything come next night, but you don't want to risk it. He wraps an arm around your waist when you climb into his lap and he pulls a little box out of his desk drawer.

"Mindfang taught me a few tricks on how to keeps slaves in line the old fashioned way, with a twist," Dualscar whispers with a particularly nasty sneer. You think you should have taken advantage of his drunken state and hightailed it up top. He opens the box to reveal tens of shiny chainmail links and a small pair of pliers. He sets it down on the desk and picks up one of your skinny, bony hands up. He pulls out a single link and slides it over your finger like a claim ring, lips gently curled. "This is for not coming to me when I told you to. This could have been avoided." He snickers and pinches the ring over your finger, making you squeak uncomfortably. It starts to bite into your skin when he presses harder, flesh bunching under the too-tight metal loop. It pierces through your skin with relative ease and you scream. He shushes you and strokes your hair in some sick perversion of pale romance.

He slides a second ring onto another finger, shiny steel hardly contrasting at all against the pallid grey of your skin. "This one is for even thinking you could deny me." He pinches it shut over your finger more quickly than the last, bringing yellow to the surface in a jagged circle under it. You wail again, writhing, only to be patted and petted like a frightened barkbeast. "Shush, shush, sweet thing. If you'd only been a bit more docile, more obedient..." No, you know he would still have hurt you and tried to break you even if you had been a perfect little lapdog. He'd let up when you came too close to breaking. You remember that the slaves he beaks the most are the ones that respond the least. You kick and scream when he forces another ring on and he laughs, holding your arm still by force.

"You took something that didn't belong to you!" He practically cackles and snaps the little ring closed. You manage to punch him in the throat and he gags, nearly breaking your rib with how tightly he tugs you closer. He grins at you and pinches one over your thumb, and that one somehow hurts the most. He pecks your cheeks and runs his fingers through your hair . "If you tell me you're sorry, I might take pity on you. Tell me how sorry you are for all the trouble." He manages to get you to stop sobbing by rubbing your back and stroking your hair almost lovingly.

"Sorry," you mumble.

He pulls you nearer and whispers uncomfortably close to your ear. "Louder. Beg."

"I'm so sorry, please forgive me," You whimper with an inward cringe, "Please forgive me, sir." The pain makes you feel woozy and tethered to your fingers alone. The rest of you fades in and out as your fingers turn pale yellow and your insides churn. He uses the pliers and his claws to pry open the first ring, tearing skin with ring and nail alike. You try to claw at his hands and get away from the pain, but he grabs you by the waist and wrist until you stop struggling.

"You're such a good little maggot. No wonder I like you so much," he laughs and strokes your hair, loosening the next ring once you stop struggling and tugging it off your finger carelessly. He slaps a hand over your mouth to muffle your scream. He does the same for the last rings and leaves your fingers scraped, flayed, and ruined. He pops open a shitty bottle of what looks like water but turns out to be vodka and douses your whole hand in it. You shriek, and he blinks hard while his hearing recovers. He puts the bloody-yellow rings into the small box and slips it back into the drawer. He takes a few gulps of the vodka and shoves the bottle at you. You don't want any of it but tip his hand so that the numbing sting of the vodka fills your mouth and slides down your throat. He puts the bottle away and ruffles your hair.

"I really do like you," he says with such confidence that you almost believe him. He slides sideways in his chair, dragging you with him. He snorts when you yelp at the sudden shift and pain in your hand. He yawns, reeking of booze, and practically swaddles you in his cape. He appears to think it's funny that you don't understand what the hell he's doing, though he looks like he's going to fall over. Finally, his eyelids do droop, and he passes out with one strong arm wrapped around your waist and his cape tucked around the both of you like a ridiculously expensive blanket. You wonder if you could murder him in his sleep.

\--You shift into the next section.--

Spinneret Mindfang, terror of the high seas, was his kismesis. When you first saw her, she was skirting around Dualscar like a curious little cat. They were all light touches and hushed talk. The gentle, fleeting touches turned into scratches and bloody kisses, and you watched it all from the doorway. She was infuriated to catch you peeping, though you hadn't meant to. You'd heard them talking about you. She took control of you mind with an iron gauntlet and forced you in the door, down on your knees and holding his letter opener up to your own throat. He explained that you were the slave he had told her about and roughly twined his fingers in her hair. She left your mind with only dents of fuzzy confusion in your consciousness. He pulled her over and resumed their heated kisses, ignoring you while you stared in shock and wonder.

After that night, whenever she would come around you would feel her presence creeping into your head. She could see through your eyes and use you for her games with Dualscar. You couldn't tell whether or not it was you who held the ropes that tied you when they played. She could pull power from you, make it dance like lightning over his skin. Her left eye was divided into seven pupils, arranged like a flower on her iris. She reminded you of someone, but the way your head clouded and your thoughts slipped away from you when she caught your eye tore the memories away.


	4. Chapter 4

"Where's the wiggler you fancy now at?" she asks, legs draped over the edge dropping down to the main deck from her perch just under the wheel.

"I don't fancy the sludgeblood," he calls up irritably, waving crewmen to the rigging and squinting up at her through the harsh glint of the early moons.

"Always eloquent, Dualscar," she giggles, crossing her legs, "I want to play. Call the boy here." Her blue lips curl over her stark white teeth.

"I have a duty to the empire," he reminds her with a scowl.

"And yet here I am still," she retorts, grinning. His scowl deepens and he turns his back to her. "As of late, you've become so dull."

"A bit less than your skill, I should hope." He shoots a sneer over his shoulder and she cackles.

"The rapport is poor as always! Do you think yourself a witty prince?" Her eyes narrow in kind and she leans forward, glaring at the back of his head. He nearly stomps to the hatch and throws it open, ordering a deckhand down the ladder to fetch you. You are out on the deck in shackles before you can lift your arm against the light. "You never did treat your toys well." She glances at you with an expression of disgust and returns her attention to him.

He's lost no interest in you over time as with the others, who are thin and cold from neglect, but has gained a sickeningly stronger desire to see you bowing lower each time you come before him. He's marked you through and through with claws and teeth, pinching skin on your shoulders and back most of all with white and yellow scars. You've become used to the loose shirt-dresses he clothes you in being ripped off of you without a moment's notice, and he fails to clothe you occasionally simply because he finds the embarrassment and discomfort it causes you amusing. You strangely enjoy the paradoxically gentle times of intimacy with him more and less at once, as it's smooth and warm and good, but it makes you ill and cold inside. The chainmail rings become a regular punishment. You no longer sleep in his room, not even at the foot of his 'bed'.

"You expect a well-worn thing to be pristine?" He grabs you by the outermost left horn and forces you to duck your head for her in a quick bow. She laughs, pushing hair away from her face. Her mind wraps over yours like steel wire, trapping you between the two of them once again. "Mindfang, you'll break it."

Your status as a creature had faded quickly once she showed up, though the way he handled and manipulated you like a doll was no different. The other slaves slowly rot 'alive' in their cells down below while you dance under their hands high above. When she leaves, he'll take you down below deck again, throw you on his desk and laugh if you land oddly, punish you if you bleed on his papers. As long as you don't die, the empire couldn't care less. His sadism is just a cute personality quirk as far as they care.

He treats you kindly to see if he can break you further.

He plays at kinship and fucks you until you cry.

He finds your diary and reads it to you.

He tore it in half with a harsh rasp of a laugh and dumped it in the bin. When he left, you rescued it and fixed it with supplies stolen from his desk. You hid it again and prayed he'd never find it.

\--

You shut the small, stitched-together book in which you store your memories and slide it back under the crate you use as your new hiding place. Even as a rag of a troll, you can't let go of yourself just yet. You sigh, adjusting the crate over your diary. A sweep or so more and you'll be gone from this hell to another. You look forward to the day you leave. 

The blueblood named Mindfang no longer visits, which you would be grateful for if he didn't scratch you all the harder for it. The wine bottles in his cabin come out more and more often, sitting on his desk in silent vigilance. You wear little steel rings pulled tight over your fingers night in and night out, palms to his chest and his mouth on your neck. He throws you on his bed and doesn't give you the courtesy of using a bucket.

The door smashes open behind you and you jolt up, twisting on your heel to face whoever it is who's found you. You can easily ignore them and hurry out if it's a crew member, but it isn't. To make matters worse, he saw you kneeling by the crate for sure. He stalks towards you in the dim storage room and looms over you.

"And just what were you doing in here?" Dualscar asks with a cheery tone, hands clasped behind his back. "I've heard tell that you slip in here often. Why is that? Do you not get fed enough?" He smirks in a way that assures you your little haven is gone yet again. His hands sweep to his sides and one cracks across your face. "Answer me when I ask you a question!" You taste the iron of blood in your mouth and cast your eyes to the far corner of the room.

"I sometimes enjoy being alone," you reply, quiet as a church mouse. The toe of his boot connects with your ribs and you crumple forward onto the wooden planks. He pushes you to one side of the crate with his boot and raises an eyebrow.

"What for? Do you dislike my attention?" You know a question you shouldn't answer. He doesn't hit you when you say nothing. His knees pop when he crouches down to shove the crate away. The faded red cover of your diary peeks out from under it when the crate hits the wall. He chuckles and pulls it out with a glance at you. "This old thing? I thought I got rid of it. Why are you so obsessed with it?" He flicks through the pages idly, pausing to look over one section or another. He laughs more loudly, eyes crinkling at the edges. "What detail! I admit I don't remember even half of this." He looks far too amused by your desperate efforts to hold onto yourself.

"Neither do I," You mutter bitterly, sitting up and huddling into a misshapen ball. He doesn't hear you, you assume, since he keeps thumbing through your diary. Your ears perk, then flatten when you hear the harsh sound of paper ripping. You can't help yourself, you have to ask. "Why?" He turns to look at you for a long moment, then rips a big handful of pages out.

"I own you," he informs you. You recall the words. They make you feel uncomfortable and itchy to get up and run. You can't place them, though, and simply stare up at him. "You added to it since I last read it." Another page flutters from between his fingers to the ground. You reach for it, thinking you might be able to stitch the pages back in, but his foot slams down on top of your hand. "Do I have to burn these?" His boot lifts from your hand and you pull it back to your side, eyeing him warily.

"No, sir," you reply quietly. He drops your precious memories, ripped clean from the binding, and leans down to grab you by the shirt collar. He hauls you up and wraps one strong arm around your shoulders. He's smiling down at you with cold, hard eyes. You cast your eyes away again and pull the hem of your shirt up. That look has become all too familiar, but he'll leave you alone afterwards.

"So eager! Could it be you're trying to appease me?" He grins, hand slipping down to caress your stomach idly. He lifts you and sets you down on a crate, stroking your thighs. "You ought to. After all, by whose grace do you enjoy such an easy life?" His thumbs press against the tendons in your inner thighs too hard to be enjoyable but softly enough that you can ignore it well enough.

"Yours, sir." You think this is better than his strange and cruel punishments are. You'll sit beside him at the meal table and eat his food, drink his wine. He chuckles and nods, pleased, thumbs rubbing tender, soothing warmth into the tight muscles of your thighs. He'll smoke a cigar and you'll sit with him, silently loathing yourself and him in equal parts. You have no one to talk with. The other slaves have become mute in one way or another. He presses his palms against the insides of your knees, kneeling while he spreads your legs.

"Too bad, I was hoping I could punish you for disobedience." His fingers graze the outer folds of your nook. He bends over you, lips and teeth to your neck. His tongue rolls over your skin while his fingertips massage your slit. He brings his hands up to show to you, fingertips glazed with a golden sheen. "As always, a cute little slut." His teeth pull at your lip while he unlatches his armor and works his clothes off, breaking the already bloody kiss to remove his shirt. You wipe your mouth off on the back of your arm and lie back on the crate, shoulders pressed against the wall. His shirt hits the floor as he shoves his pants off, once again revealing the thick, writhing purple mass at his groin. His hands rub languidly over your stomach, soothing and strong.

"Your slut, sir," you remind him. He loves submission, and whether he realizes it or not, he loves a good kiss-up. He kneads at your muscles, working the tension away while his hips slide between your legs. You feel him smiling once he hides his face against your neck, and his bulge squeezes inside you without any hesitation. You've become too used to him, not stretched by anything he could naturally put to you. It's almost a comfort to think of. You hear the rumble of his pleased voice resounds as he starts to roll his hips, equally languid with his searching hands.

"You've learned so well," he coos, nails scraping over your hips,"You're almost perfect." He snaps his hips suddenly to yours, kissing up your jaw and biting the corner of your mouth. Your moan sounds strange and breathy to your ears. He chuckles and rocks his hips, settling into an offbeat rhythm with his lips half an inch from your ear. His breathing alone seems almost deafening. You feel torn away from yourself like this, pinned on a crate with him stuffed up inside you, gasping with pleasure and wishing you could at least have the dignity not to like it. He hasn't brought a pail with him; he intends to let you make a mess of the lesser-used store room, and so you do. You dig your claws into the wood of the crate under you and groan helplessly, spilling onto the floor like an animal. You might as well be.

It feels like it's too long before he's through using you, coming inside you and letting it slop out onto your legs and the wooden planks. You feel the urge to write down this unpleasant memory down with all the others, and recall that half the pages are at your feet, probably soaked with your and his fluids. You briefly ponder why you clung to yourself like that. Without it, you have nothing to remember yourself by. You can drift through your days as a thoroughly broken pet until the empire comes back for you. You'll be truly separate from the creature he adores abusing. You pull your shirt back down and watch him dress.

"Wash up. You should look at least marginally presentable before mealtime." He sneers at you and leaves the storage room. You look back down at the soaked papers. You walk out of the puddle of genetic material, leaving it for the unwitting deck swab. You leave them, stumbling out the door with purple-and-gold streaked thighs, letting the last shred of yourself go.


End file.
